Automated systems for interacting with customers by generating automatic, written, auditory, or video responses via web and mobile device application channels are useful ways to provide customers with requested information and perform routine account actions in an expedited, extended hours fashion, without the need to have a large workforce of customer service agents.
Intelligent agents are capable of handling predefined commands that are expressly stated by a customer. Existing intelligent agents are typically trained in a narrow domain for recognizing such predefined, expressly stated commands. As such, existing intelligent agents are limited in their capabilities for handling complex user utterances that are not directly responsive to a previous dialogue message, for understanding a stray direction taken in the dialogue, for recognizing implicit goals expressed in the dialogue, and the like.
In some domains, such user interaction with an intelligent agent is commonplace. In a particular example, intelligent agents implemented in the financial domain may invoke emotional customer utterances that lack an explicit request or instruction such that existing intelligent agents are simply unable to effectively handle. As such, there is a need for improved intelligent agents that are able to understand implicit goals contained in a customer utterance, as well as recognize an emotional sentiment of the customer, and identify an effective response or executable action to assist the customer.